


Taxi!

by HamishHolmes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamishHolmes/pseuds/HamishHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel comes home to a nasty surprise</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taxi!

Gabriel was coming home from a hard day at work. The students had been giving him hell all afternoon and he was really looking forward to seeing Sam and having dinner. He thought Indian takeaway, unless Sam wanted something else of course. He leaned back in his seat and sighed. The sight of the bag on his seat next to him was a constant reminder of the marking he had to do. He stuck his tongue out at the bag and looked resolutely out of the window.

Just then, a loud eruption broke through the silence in the cab and Gabe practically jumped.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard through the partition.

“No idea mate, but I don’t wanna get any closer, that’s for sure,” said the driver, pulling over to the kerb and motioning for Gabriel to get out.  
Gabe did so and, after paying the man, set off at a brisk pace towards his house.

The streets seemed deadly quiet after the sudden noise of the explosion. The birds weren’t singing and the usual chatter of the traffic seemed to have faded to nothing. His footsteps echoed loudly into the silent world.

He turned onto his street and stopped. The pile of rubble was spilling onto the road and cluttering the pavement. Gabriel’s stomach dropped. As he walked slowly forward he counted the houses. Number one with the loud parties and drunkards. Number three with the lovely student couple. Number five with the four dogs. Number seven with the owner that no one had ever seen. Number nine with the saxophonist. Number 11 with Mr Milton & Mr Winchester. Well, the pile of rubble that used to be his house was there, spreading like some sort of architectural vomit onto the gardens of the neighbours. Gabriel stopped. Silence fell once again over the world. He bent down to lift a small colourful thing from the wreckage. A small musical note painted onto plaster. It was part of the mural they had been painting for the nursery. Gabriel sat down, cradling the chip of wall in his hands and just staring at it. Just staring. Staring.  
After a few minutes, he flung it to the floor with a force that shattered it into tiny fragments that skittered under the neighbours’ cars and between their rosebushes.

“Sam? SAM!” He yelled, beginning to frantically pull the rubble away from the pile, “someone HELP me!” sobs choked the final words and then silent tears coursed down Gabriel’s face, weaving tracks in the dust that caked his face.

Mr Chuck Shurley from number nine raced round the corner of the street, his face red and his breath coming in short gasps.

“Gabriel …” his voice tailed off. What do you say to a man who is clearly distraught, “I-I’ll call 911.”

The man darted into his own unaffected house.

Gabriel was still lifting bricks and plaster from the pile and chucking them behind him. He had no idea how long it was before Chuck came out and began to help him shift the rubbish. He worked like a man possessed, refusing all offers of breaks and rests.

“Sammy needs me. He wouldn’t rest,” was all he would mutter whenever some well-meaning neighbour decided to have another go at convincing him to sit down.

Eventually, the emergency services arrived.

“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!” yelled Gabriel to the man climbing from the fire truck. He marched over and began waving his finger in the poor man’s face, “Where the hell have you …” Gabriel’s finger lolled uselessly as his voice tapered into a sob and he fell against the astonished fire-fighter’s chest.

Now that the emergency crews had arrived, Gabriel contented himself to sit on Chuck’s front wall, wrapped in a bright orange blanket and sipping weak tea that everyone foolishly believed would fill the hole in his chest, in his life.  
After two hours of shifting the rubble, the firemen came over to Gabriel.

“Mr …” one of them began.

“Winchester,” said Gabriel, brusquely, though he had no real claim to the name.

“Mr Winchester, we’ve found your boyfriend’s b … your boyfriend. We’ve phoned for the ambulance but ...”

Once again, the voice simply petered out and they all looked awkwardly around at each other and the ground and the sky. At anything but Gabriel.  
Gabriel said nothing. For the first time in his life, Gabe was completely speechless. He could already hear the siren echoing around his skull, though he wasn’t sure if it was real yet. He stared past the men and into the past. 

_Sam stood by the kitchen sink, washing their coffee mugs and humming slightly._

_“I’ve got to go,” said Gabriel, slipping his arms around the taller man’s waist. “see you tonight.”_

_“Yeah. We’ll have takeaway, I think,” said Sam, turning in his husband’s grip to kiss him._

_“Promise?” asked Gabriel, who didn’t get to eat as much fast food as he’d have likes, though he thought Sam’s cooking was amazing._

_“Promise.”_

Gabriel knew that the likelihood of them ever having another takeaway together was slim, but Sam wouldn’t forget his promise.

“You promised …” murmured Gabriel out loud.

The ambulance arrived in a screech of tires and energy. Gabe can’t watch as they load Sam onto the stretcher and he climbs into the seat next to his husband with his eyes screwed closed as if not being able to see it will stop it being true.

Sam was whisked into the operating theatre as soon as they arrived. Gabriel sat quietly in the waiting room. The other occupants of the room came and went. The lady whose son had had to have something extracted led him away with a stern look. A child who’d come in with another severely injured man collapsed into tears of relief as they told her that her father would make a full recovery. 

Gabriel waited.

About an hour after he had arrived he realised that he needed to call Dean. He stumbled across to the pay phone and slipped in some quarters.

_Hey, Dean here._

“Hi Dean. It’s Gabriel.”

_Hi, it’s nice to hear from you. How’s Sammy?_

“Well …”

_What?_

“He’s not good, Dean. Our house collapsed in an explosion. He was caught under the rubble and they’re operating now.” Gabriel’s words had come out in a rush and he felt almost empty now.

_We’re on our way._

About half an hour later, Dean and Cas came through the doors of the waiting room where Gabe still sat waiting for news of Sam’s progress. They looked around, hovering at the door, but Gabe lacked the energy to call out for them. Instead, he sat there, watching them, wanting them to both notice him and not notice him. After only a moment, he saw Cas point towards him, and the two of them trooped over. Cas sat next to him and Dean sat on Cas’ other side, resting his head on Cas’ shoulder. Gabriel continued to stare straight ahead, staring straight out of reality and into the future that he had once imagined with Sam.

They were going to adopt a kid, a little girl to raise and pamper. They were going to argue over whether she should eat chicory or chocolate. They were going to redecorate their house and make it beautiful. Maybe they’d adopt another kid, maybe they’d get a dog. All the Christmases that Gabriel was going to cook for. All the holidays they never got to go on. The proposal Gabe never got to make. They were going to send their kids to school. They were going to get angry when they got tattoos, but secretly be glad that they were going their own way. They were going to send them to university and be sad, but also enjoy having the house to themselves again. They were going to live a life together. They were supposed to get a life together.  
Salty tears were falling again, dripping off Gabe’s nose and onto his shirt. Why did it have to end so suddenly? Where were the goodbyes that they never got to say? What was Gabe supposed to do without him?  
He was broken out of his miserable reverie by a voice that seemed to echo across endless silence.

“Mr Winchester?”

“Yes?” He said at the same time as Dean, remembering a fraction of a second too late that he was Mr Milton.

“And you are …” said the nurse, looking between them in confusion.

“Sorry, I’m Mr Milton really,” said Gabriel, “I’m just so tired.”

“Yeah, I’m the brother and he’s the boyfriend,” said Dean, attempting a small smile, “and Cas is my boyfriend.”

The nurse, to her credit, just smiled and motioned for them to follow her. Cas shook his head when Dean moved to help him to his feet.

“I will stay here, Dean,” he said, letting go of his hand, “you go, see Sam. I’ll wait here for you.”

Dean nodded and followed Gabriel as he wove his way through the crowd after the nurse. They followed her down winding corridors until, eventually, they reached a wooden door labelled ‘Room 457’.

“Mr Winchester is in a stable condition for now,” she said, blocking the door to stop them rushing inside, “we think he may have been under a ladder at the time that the house collapsed, which protected his head and neck from sustaining serious damage. The doctor will want to talk to you.”

She ushered them inside and closed the door after them. Gabe stifled a sob as he saw Sam lying prone on the bed, his pale face nearly the colour of the white pillow that it rested on. His hair was fanned out like a mane behind it, so he looked like a sickly lion. Gabriel was so emotionally wrought at the sight of Sam so vulnerable, that he did not notice the man stood by his bedside.

“Ah, you must be the brother and the boyfriend,” said the doctor, looking at them with quick, dark eyes.

Dean nodded, emotions stopping his vocal chords. The only sign Gabe gave of having heard was the slight look he gave towards the man.

“I need to talk to you,” the man said, moving forward, as if he were an actor taking centre stage for the dramatic reveal. Gabe and Dean shifted until they were looking at him over Sam.

“Sam has suffered major injuries, some of which are life changing. The minor injuries are a broken finger, two cracked ribs, and a small amount of internal bleeding. This is only to be expected with the blunt force trauma off falling debris.” The doctor paused and looked uneasy, staring off into space for a moment, “he has three major injuries. The first is a long gash down his back, which narrowly missed the spinal cord. This will probably heal fairly quickly leaving only a scar. However, we believe that he became trapped under the fallen debris from the roof, before the floor beneath him gave way. I’m afraid the surgeon had to take drastic measures to save his life.”  
The doctor peeled back the light quilt that covered Sam’s body. Or, rather, what was left of it. One arm ended in a stump, about two inches from where Sam’s wrist used to be. His left leg was cut off just below the knee. Gabriel gasped and moved forward, laying a hand on Sam’s chest and staring down at his amputated limbs.

“Was there no other way, doctor?” asked Dean, his voice an almost silent whisper.

“None,” said the doctor.

“Then could you tell the surgeon that we are very grateful to him for saving Sam.”

The doctor recognised the subtle dismissal and bowed out of the room, leaving the three of them alone.

“D-do you want to be alone?” asked Gabriel, his voice catching and breaking slightly.

“No, I know he’s alright now. I’ll go and get Cas, and we’ll come back,” Dean left quickly, not wanting to be in the room when the imminent breakdown came.

Gabriel sat on the side of the bed, avoiding the side with the IV line and the monitoring equipment.

“Hey, Sasquatch, how you doing in there?” Gabriel said, trying to keep his tone conversational, “I hope you’re good. Dean and Cas are here too, but they’ve just stepped out for a minute.” Gabe’s pretence faltered and then slipped off all together, “Oh, Sam. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to us. Not to you. You have done nothing to deserve this. NOTHING. I know you’re hurting in there Sam, but I’m hurting too. Please, you have to wake up, for me, for Dean. We’ve got so much left to do. We haven’t adopted our kid yet. We haven’t bickered over names. We haven’t had the chance to collapse against each other at the end of a tiring day of looking after a baby. We haven’t had the chance to shock a load of old ladies as we wander round town and casually tell them that it’s our kid. Damn it Sam, I didn’t even get to propose to you. I never got the chance to get down on one knee and look up, across the miles, into your eyes and ask you to marry me. I never got the chance to stand with you at the school gates to watch our child race out of the doors and run towards us. I never got to make you pancakes in the morning and bring them to you in bed. We never got to celebrate joint birthdays, or stay up late reminiscing about the years gone by. But we never said we’d have all these things. But Sam, you promised, we’re having take-away. I’m not dating a guy who thinks that he can walk out on his promises just because the house collapses around his head. So wake up and prove me right. Prove to me that you keep your promises.” Gabriel laid his head softly against Sam’s chest, “You promised.” He murmured, over and over again, before falling into a silence that consumed his whole world.


End file.
